Chrome wrap your roof!

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

But I need a clarification: are you saying Shadow Chrome is heat rejecting/reflective? If so, what brands?

https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...tml#post559281

I'd imagine that any coloured 'chrome' will give the similar results. Shadow (or black) chrome, red chrome, blue chrome etc. Ie cooler than white. Possibly gold might be the best of all - but you might look like a two bit drug dealer.

The shadow chrome looks almost OEM on both the dark cars I used it on. It would also look really cool on a silver car - it would give you that fashionable dark roof look (at least from low angles), without the heat penalty.

As for brands, I've only been able to get eBay crap. I won't be doing any more wrapping until I can get some quality product.

EDIT: Looking at my notes, I'm not sure about shadow chrome - I'll re-run the white vs chrome test, but with shadow as well. When we get some sun that is.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

I read the test article in the post above that you linked. Thanks. Seems tint and paint can each reduce internal peak temps by a few percent. I guess that is something, but I think those tests miss the fact that when a car is in motion the wind is cooling the car surface. White, black, pink, purple... at 60 mph does it really matter anymore? Tint on the other hand prevents heat from entering the car at any speed.

Sure, but unless you're driving all day, every day.... Most cars, I would think, and certainly my car, spends the majority of its time sitting there. I'd like to do as much as possible to make it cooler when I get in.

The vinyl wraps arrived today, now I'm just waiting on the thermometers.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

Lessons learned:

Wrap doesn't stick too well to the textured surface. Post shrinking helps, but I've had to add electrical tape to the edges to prevent them peeling. That's OK as in an off roader I expect dirt will creep in over time, and the electrical tape makes an easily replaced first line of defense.

Driving in a storm yesterday, the front edge lifted and started flapping...I pulled over and stuck it back down. That was OK to get me home.

Electrical tape isn't enough. It dawned on me that the solution to poor adhesion would be to apply duct tape to the edges of the area first. The wrap should hold strongly to duct tape and duct tape should hold strongly to the textured roof.

Possibly add a strip of duct tape over the top a the edge just to be sure- especially as you wouldn't want it to snag on a low branch.

This problem only applies to textured surfaces.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Here's a photo I missed earlier. It's the underside of the roof (which is matt) showing the internal temp difference between chrome and base colour.



[EDIT] this actually shows the cooling effect of a solar panel mounted with a 10mm airgap

[freebeard]

I use a handheld infrared thermometer to monitor the ceiling of my tubular aluminum home, to determine when to turn off the heat and turn on the all-house fan.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Three year update.

Since I can only buy cheap eBay wrap locally, my wraps haven't faired particularly well. They're only supposed to last 5 years max so I guess I haven't done too badly. I imagine, the 'max' is only going to happen on a garaged car and when applied to a vertical surface.



Here you can see the results. On the left I've removed the panel, and you can see it's all shiny and chromey underneath. On the right the panel is still mounted. In between is where the wrap has turned white and started to crack and peel.



Good news is the wrap did it's primary job of keeping the roof paint protected, even with some cracks letting water in. Still a fair old hastle to remove the degraded old wrap.

The Proton didn't fair as well:



At first the shadow chrome started to turn a pretty cool rust effect, I was OK with that.



Eventually, it turned matt black (the hottest colour of all) and started to crack. On removal, the wrap adhesive had fused to the clear coat and damaged the roof. This car was kept out doors under a tree so it only got morning sun.

The wrap on the Jeep is also gone, there was no way it would stick to the textured surface. Even duct taping the edges meant that the low pressure zone at the middle/rear of the roof would balloon up at speed.

[oldtamiyaphile]

While the wrap was being re-done, I took out the FLIR for some more numbers.

Let's start with the optical image:





That's a nice 10*C reduction to the interior roof temp.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Is it the same material used for under-roof thermal insulation on houses or is it that vynil meant for car-wrapping?

[oldtamiyaphile]

Car wrapping vinyl. I've been toying with adding building insulation foil to the inside as well, but it's hard to do neatly since this is a cargo van without headliner in the back. Sourcing an OEM headliner would cost too much, add weight and not look that good unless you also added all the extra pillar trims to match.

I'll probably add building insulation when I drop the headliner in the cabin (I almost bought some aerogel to stuff in there). You can definitely feel heat coming from there, since that part of the roof is visible I don't really want to chrome wrap the exterior.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Is it totally out of question to make your own headliner with building insulation foil instead of resorting to a stock headliner?